Michael J. Fox on Parkinson’s Disease and Stem Cells – Oprah and the Daily Show

Posted Apr 09 2009 6:21pm

Michael Fox has written a new book, “Always Looking Up”, great title too by the way and has been appearing on several talk shows to promote the book. You can visit the Foundation to find out what is being done with a cure/treatment for Parkinson’s Disease at the Foundation Web site.

I have included a couple videos here, first from the Daily Show, and you can clearly see he has not lost his sense of humor, even tackling the question of which is more difficult, the disease or politicians.

What is even more amazing is his appearance on Oprah and the revelations from Dr. Oz on where and when he believes a cure may be here for the disease. The cure lies in stem cells, but perhaps not the way we have heard stem cells discussed in the past. The TED convention this year also offered a lot of information on stem cells and the video from the show is well worth watching and will help explain what regenerative medicine is all about. Cloning stem cells is on the horizon to be part of the cure. If you haven’t caught up with what’s going on with stem cell research, it’s well worth reading up. There are women walking around with bladders that have been grown from stem cells, heart valves are grown from stem cells, etc. If they can bring this technology to cure or better treat Parkinson’s, that would be great for all those who suffer.

In the related reading below I went back and captured some of the prior posts I have made about Parkinson’s Disease to include some of the medical devices that are being used for treatment as well. When you watch and see how the implants are helping, it’s amazing. One woman was in such a terrible state, she was refined to a wheelchair, and with the device she can function almost pretty normal, and another victim of the disease was able to get a driver’s license, something that had never been possible before. Between research and development with stem cells and devices, there are great strides being made and helping bring a bit of quality of life to those stricken. BD

Selling a new book, actor Michael J. Fox appeared Monday on Comedy Central’s The Daily Show and dismissed Rush Limbaugh as "cartoonish" for his criticism of Fox’s slashing ads for Democrats in the 2006 midterms. After host Jon Stewart suggested Limbaugh’s brain was "diseased," Fox even joked to Stewart that it’s questionable that Limbaugh has a brain.

“In the opening pages of Lucky Man, I described a morning in Florida 19 years ago when I woke up with a hangover and a twitching left pinky finger. In the intervening years, my life has seen many changes. Most mornings, for example, I awake to find my left pinky finger perfectly still—it's the rest of my body that's shaking uncontrollably. Technically, my body is only fully at peace when my mind is completely at rest—that is, asleep. Low brain activity means fewer neurons firing, or in my case, misfiring. As I awaken, before my conscious mind really knows what's happening, my body has already gotten the news in the form of insistent neural instructions to twist, twitch, and contort. Any chance of slipping back into sleep is lost.”